[1. City ordinance of 1394]

It is agreed that all Corpus Christi pageants
be performed in the places anciently assigned them, and not elsewhere
than where advised by the mayor, bailiffs and their officers. If any
pageant is presented contrary to this order, the craftsmen responsible
for that pageant shall pay 6s.8d in the mayor's
chamber, to the use of the community.

[2.] Expenses on the festival
of Corpus Christi with gifts to lords' minstrels throughout the year
[1396]

They account for the dyeing of 4 cloths for use in the pageants, 4s.

For transporting and bringing back timber for barriers in front of
the king, 2s.1d

To 8 porters for hauling and moving the pageants, 5s.4d

For a new banner and its apparatus, 12s.2d.

Towards the performances, 15s.4d.

For bread, ale, wine, meat, and a fire for the mayor and reputable men
on the day of the play, 18s.8d.

To Robert Paton for carpentry in making a pageant, two days work, 12d.

For the painting of the pageant, 2s.

For 19 saplings bought from John de Craven for
[making] the barriers, 6s.8d.

To William de Barneby carpenter for his work on the same, 4s.4d.

Total: £4.11s.6d

To visiting minstrels of the king and other lords, £7.7s.4d.

[3. Petition of the community to restrict
the locations of the performances, 1398/99]

The community of the city of York petitions the honourable mayor and
aldermen of the city that: Huge expenses and costs are incurred on
the play and the pageants of Corpus Christi day, which cannot
[all] be acted or performed on
the same day (as they ought to be), because the pageants are acted in
such a large number of locations, to the great damage and annoyance of
the community and of outsiders who visit the city on that day for
that reason. Considering that the pageants are maintained and supported
by the community and craftsmen of the city, in honour and reverence of
our Lord Jesus Christ and for the honour and benefit of the city, we ask
you to ordain that the pageants be acted in the locations to which
they were assigned and restricted by yourselves and the community in
earlier times  the which locations are in a schedule attached to
this petition  or in other locations each of which will be
determined by the mayor and council. And that any and all who contravene
the aforementioned ordinance and determination shall incur a penalty of
40s. payable to the council chamber of the city. And that if any of
the pageants are tardy or dilatory [in
progressing from location to location] due to default or negligence
of the actors, they incur a penalty of 6s.8d to the chamber.

They implore that these matters be undertaken, or otherwise the play
cannot be performed by the community. And this they beseech for God's
and charity's sakes, for the benefit of the community and outsiders
visiting the city, for the honour of God and fostering of charity among
the common people.

The places where the Corpus Christi play shall be presented:

first, at the gates of Holy Trinity in Micklegate;

second, at the entrance to Robert Harpham's house;

third, at the entrance of John de Gyseburne's house;

fourth, at Skeldergate's end and North Street's end;

fifth, at the end of Conyng Street opposite Castlegate;

sixth, at the end of Jubretgate;

seventh, at the entrance to Henry Wyman's house in Coney Street;

eighth, at the end of Coney Street, next to the common hall;

ninth, at the entrance to Adam del Brigg's house;

tenth, at the gates of the monastery of St. Peter;

eleventh, at the end Girdlergate, at Petergate;

twelfth, on the Pavement.

It is ordained that banners for the play,
[decorated] with the arms of the city,
shall be made available by the mayor to the Corpus Christi pageants,
for setting up in the locations where the pageants are to be performed.
Those same banners must, each year on the day after Corpus Christi, be
redelivered at the chamber into the hands of the mayor and
chamberlains of
the city, for storage during the year to follow, upon penalty of
6s.8d paid to the use of the community by any or all who hold on to
those banners beyond the day after and do not return them as specified.

[4. Extracts from city ordinance of 1417]

The mayor, reputable men, and the whole community by unanimous agreement
have ordained that all those who receive money for seating upon
scaffolding, which they erect in the aforementioned places
[i.e. the locations for performances]
in front of their houses on communal land, must pay one third of
the receipts to the city chamberlains to be applied to the use of
the community. If they refuse to pay the one-third share or to make
some other fair arrangement with the chamber, then the performance will
be transferred to some other location selected at the discretion of
the mayor at that time and of the city council; no-one being exempted
from this ordinance, with the sole exception of a few owners of scaffolds
in Micklegate....

... it is improper, and not to the advantage of the community, that
the play be presented each year in the same particular locations and
nowhere else, since everyone according to his status is doing his share
of the work towards maintaining the performances. They have therefore
unanimously ordained, for the benefit of the community, that the places
where the play is performed may be changed, unless those before
whose houses performances have previously been presented pay some fee
to the community for that personal privilege which they have each year.
And that in all years to come, for as long as the play continues to
be performed, it shall be presented in front of the entranceways and
houses of those who pay the best and largest
[fee] to the chamber and show
a preparedness to do more for the benefit of the whole community
in order to have the play presented there; no favour being shown
to any individual for his personal advantage, but taking into consideration
only the public benefit of the whole community of York. The respectable
gentleman John Moreton, in regard to his house, submitted completely
to the decision and ruling of the mayor and council on the matter of
the play being performed in front of his residence in Micklegate and
other of his properties in the city.

[5. Record of the difficulties of the goldsmiths
and masons with their pageants, 1431]

It should not be ignored but instead committed to memory that
the goldsmiths of the city of York have in previous years borne
considerable and onerous expenses related to their two pageants in
the Corpus Christi play. But now the world has changed for them; they
have become poorer than they were in the past, because of the circumstances
mentioned above. They have made repeated appeals to the mayor and council
for grant of a subsidy that would lighten their insupportable burden.
Or, failing that, for release from responsibility for one of their pageants
and its associated expenses, which grow day by day, since they cannot
much longer support the burden of both of the pageants without putting
themselves in great difficulty. On the other hand, the masons of
the city have been grumbling among themselves concerning their
Corpus Christi play pageant, in which Fergus is scourged, because
the subject of that pageant does not derive from holy scripture and
has provoked shouting and laughter rather than evoked devout feelings.
In consequence, arguments, quarrels and fights have occasionally broken
out among audience members. Rarely, if ever, could they produce and
perform their pageant in daylight, as preceding pageants did. Therefore
the masons expressed a strong desire to be released from responsibility
for that pageant and assigned a different one, which would be based on
holy scripture and could be produced and performed in daylight. To have
their wishes fulfilled, both groups petitioned and beseeched the mayor
and council for their consent and favour in the matter. Whereupon
the mayor, Thomas Snaudon, and the aldermen and council of the
city chamber, sympathizing with the wishes and desires of the men of
those crafts and considering them valid, decided that the goldsmiths
should have their burden lessened by relieving them of one of their
pageants  that is, Herod. Similarly, the masons and their gild
should be released from the pageant of Fergus, taking over
[instead] the pageant of Herod for
which the goldsmiths had formerly been responsible, producing it at
their own expense and performing it in a proper fashion that would bring
credit to the city, as part of the Corpus Christi play, as often as
that play would be performed in the city.

DISCUSSION

These various extracts are indicative of the amount of trouble and expense
the city underwent to organize and present the Corpus Christi play,
a burden it shared with the gilds supporting the individual pageants.
The city put its stamp on the event through the banners bearing city arms,
set up at authorized performance locations, and later permitted to
be mounted above each pageant  in place of signs advertising
the trade of the gilds producing each pageant.

One recurring problem was regulating the locations for presentations of
the pageants. It may have been that the gilds were bribed by wealthy
townsmen to stop and perform before those townsmen's houses. The large
number of individual pageants, combined with the large number of
performance locations  swollen by unscheduled stops  may
well have impeded progress to the point of failure to complete the route
during the day. Just possibly some such embarrassment may have occurred
when Richard II attended the performance in 1396 (two weeks after
granting the city a new charter).

The wagons were stored in one or more communal buildings on Toft Green,
in the southwestern corner of the city; these storage sheds came to
be known as Ratton Row. It was natural, therefore, for the route of
the performances to begin outside the Benedictine priory at the
southern end of Micklegate, not far from the town wall; just possibly
the pageant scenery was erected on the wagons within the priory walls,
and the cavalcade emerged from there. The wagons then trundled
northeastwards along Micklegate, stopping before the homes of
two citizens  master-weaver Robert Harpham and ex-mayor John Gyseburn
 and again at the junction where North Street and Skeldergate ran
into Micklegate, before crossing the Ouse at the only bridge then
in existence. A short distance beyond the bridge up Ousegate, they
reached a junction with Coney Street (west) and Castlegate (east), and
gave another performance. Turning up Coney Street (the name meaning
King Street), they stopped en route at the junction with Jubbergate
(now Market Street), in front of the house of a prosperous merchant
(and future mayor), and outside the hall that served for large
political meetings. Further along Coney Street, they headed northwards
up Stonegate; there they stopped at Adam del Brigg's house, then
travelled on to where Stonegate ended, at the boundary of the
Minster precinct. After a presentation near the Minster gates, they
turned eastwards along Petergate and presented again at its junction
with Church Street (formerly Girdlergate) then continued on until
reaching the Pavement (a wide paved street) where the final presentation
was given by All Saints church. From here it was a short distance
south via Ousegate to the bridge and the route back along Micklegate.
Part of the complaint of the masons seems to point to the problems
which occurred with the large number of pageants combined with
large number of stations; those coming last in the process were
still performing after daylight had faded. As the final pageant, the
Last Judgement, was put on by the powerful mercers gild, any complaint
they might have had in this regard would have been influential.

At a meeting of the city authorities in June 1417, one item of business
was the confirmation of ordinances stemming from the petition of 1398/99,
including the stations for the presentation of pageants, which were
described in almost the same terms (although "formerly of" was inserted
in front of the names of most of the individuals outside whose houses
presentations were to be made). Provisions about the banners were
likewise reiterated. Two additions were made, a few days apart, to
this ordinance to capitalize on the benefits to certain private citizens
from the stations appointed for performances: intangible benefits
in terms of social status, but also concrete profits from charging
the audience for superior viewing-points; the city felt it should share
in the revenues. Councillor John Moreton  being one of the citizens
personally benefiting  evidently opposed this at first, but later
gave way to majority opinion; he was elected mayor the following year.
The city's resentment of the private profits being made from
the pageants was doubtless partly due to the fact that costs related
to the pageant were a regular item in its own budget. A grant in 1478
to two fishmongers to have the pageants performed between their properties,
on the Ousegate side of the Ouse Bridge, shows that the city received
11s. annually for this licence fee; the grant was made for twelve years.
The 1486/87 city chamberlains accounts show an income of £4.13s.4d.
from 66 "locations" (presumably including both the licences for
performance stations and taxes on viewing stands), although 12 other
locations, in the Pavement, had not found lessees  perhaps
these last stations were less popular because of the late hour at
which the final presentations took place there. This represented only
a small percentage of the city's total annual income.

The resentment felt by the city may have been exacerbated by
the occasional complaints from some of the gilds about the burdensome
expense to their members of mounting the pageants. The coopers gild,
for example, requested the city authorities adopt an ordinance
requiring that anyone who set up shop as a master-cooper should
straightway pay a fee of 6s.8d, half going to the city and
the other half towards the cost of the pageant. And in 1421 several
minor gilds requested that their assignments be amalgamated into
a single play, towards whose production costs all of the gilds would
contribute (although arguments soon broke out between these gilds as
to the amount of contributions). For a number of years in the same
period the smiths and marshals (blacksmiths) were demanding  on
the grounds of encroachment by each on the trade of the other 
contributions towards the production costs of its pageant; arbitration
finally decided that one representative from each gild should work
together to collect the "pageant silver" from members of both gilds,
with the sum collected being put towards production of both pageants.
The plea from the goldsmiths again is testimony of what was perceived
as a high expense, although we must allow for some exaggeration from
the petitioners. Nonetheless, the play overall remained popular, and
performances continued well into the sixteenth century.